


Witches in Gotham

by Tashi_Lupin



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Court of Owls, Fae & Fairies, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Urban Fantasy, Werewolves, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2018-09-22 00:52:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9574676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tashi_Lupin/pseuds/Tashi_Lupin
Summary: After local billionaire Bruce Wayne dies in mysterious circumstances, feared witch Dick Grayson takes in his youngest son. Tim Drake suspects foul play when it comes to his brother's adoption and enlists the help of hermit Jason Todd against the witch, but things are never as they seem in Gotham City and something deep, dark, and ancient is bubbling back to the surface.





	1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

**Author's Note:**

> This is... A labour of love in the truest sense. It's taken me about a year, but I finally have the first chapter of twelve to Witches in Gotham! This will be updated slowly but surely, and I would like to give a special thanks to everyone who has read the work in its stages before being posted, especially my junior creative writing teacher, who got the ball rolling in the first place.
> 
> Lastly, I'd like to thank my wonderful beta reader and resource for all things witchy boy1dr. This would have never made it so far without him, and I owe him so much <3
> 
> Please read and review!

“Local billionaire, Bruce Wayne, was found dead yesterday morning in his bed. There was no obvious struggle or cause of death, though a recently released autopsy shows that there was a shard of wood in his heart. The wood shard, however, had no entrance wound. Wayne’s death is still under investigation. Wayne’s will puts his son Damian, (11) into the care of one Richard Grayson. The Wayne estates and company are now in the hands of Wayne’s adopted son Timothy Drake (19).”

From this point on, the article was all speculation, but no one bothered to keep reading. Almost everyone had come to the same conclusion: Wayne had it coming, dealing with a witch, and now his son would pay too. The locals all knew something was rotten in Gotham. Now it was bubbling back to the surface. 

Elders passed down their iron railroad spikes to those who still had to go out after dark. Parents told their children to be home by sundown, and to never make eye contact with strangers on the streets. If that witch had killed Wayne, who wouldn’t he kill? 

Gotham had a witch problem. And that problem was Dick Grayson.

The old folk said he’s older than the hills, that he blew in on some cold wind heaven knows how long ago and settled. That was when Gotham started to sour. No one remembered when the witch came to town, but he never looked a day older, and he always had those sharp teeth bared in a smile. 

The teeth, people said in whispers, are how you tell someone’s a witch. All kinds of ghouls followed Dick to Gotham, all with sharp teeth. They lurked in the shadows, and if you said they were witches, at least you could pretend they were human. 

Sometimes the locals wondered if Dick knew they hated him. He walked through the streets like he owned the city, browsing through the farmer’s market every Thursday and smiling at the cashiers when he deigned to visit the grocery store. And now he’d shamelessly taken a child. It was all legal, technically, but you could never tell with witches. Damian followed him everywhere now, hand clasped tightly in Dick’s. Those who were brave enough to look their way said that Dick’s smile seemed to soften when he looked down at Damian. Damian smiled tightly, close-lipped, as he walked at Dick’s heels. Silent where Dick was loud, guarded where Dick was open, yet seemingly adoring him. 

The child seemed happy, but who knew for sure. You could never tell with witches- or those taken by them.

Of course, despite how much of the souring of Gotham and its influx of crime could be attached to Dick Grayson, The Witch Who Never Dies, no one ever dared oppose him. Those that did were never heard from again. Besides, he had been there longer than everyone else. Some said he had practically made Gotham with his own two hands, built it up from cobblestones and darkness. He had some right to his city, whether they liked it or not. 

Everyone agreed to this, never even thinking to oppose him. Everyone except poor Timothy Drake, who, people said, was driven mad with grief by the combined deaths of his first parents and his adopted father. Not to mention having his younger brother ripped from his arms (no one had seen it, but everyone had heard the story). Everyone except Jason Todd, who was either brave or stupid enough to live out near the Witch’s cottage in the woods. 

Jason Todd was, in fact, brave  _ and  _ stupid, and also sometimes a wolf, which played more of a role in his housing arrangement than the first two traits. In fact, he thought Dick Grayson was an asshole; Jason just wanted him and his new brat to stop dumping their trash on his lawn. No one, of course, listened to Jason when he remarked on this, mostly because no one was entirely sure if saying Dick’s name would summon him. They were all, however, fairly confident that saying that Dick sure lived up to his name because he was  _ a giant fucking prick _ was inadvisable to listen to or agree with. 

This was why Timothy had to find him.

The woods seemed to howl like screaming children or the sick and dying as Tim set out along the long forgotten path. Despite it being the middle of the day and sunny, for Gotham anyways, the forest was so dense it blotted out the majority of the light that tried to filter through the dark leaves. Shivering, Tim kept a steady pace, his head held high. He had to keep going; his brother's life was at stake, all of Gotham could be at stake, and he knew that there was foul play connected to his father’s death along with the haphazard, rushed adoption of his brother.

It got colder as he went further into the woods, darker, every shadow became a wolf, every snapping twig a hunter while Tim kept up, ignoring the feeling in his gut, ignoring how the air started to smell like rot and decay. If the people of his city considered him crazy with grief, he would go outside the city to find someone who was considered just as out there as he was, to the only person he had ever heard of going against That Witch Dick Grayson. 

He came to a clearing, grass littered with food scraps, paper, metal pieces, a myriad of straw things (baskets, dolls, half finished ornaments, door mats), broken bottles and plastic. Jason always complained about the witch and, now, Tim’s brother dumping their trash on his lawn, so Tim guessed this must be the right place.

The house itself was really more of a shack. By Tim’s estimate, the building had to be only fifty square feet; the whole house could fit in his living room. The paint might have been white once, but now it was a dull, peeling gray exposing the wood paneling as much as covered it. The shutters hung from singular hinges, blood red and latched shut despite barely hanging at all. The shingles were in six different shades of gray, some falling to the ground. Tim watched one get moved by the wind, floating to the ground like an industrial leaf. Only the steady stream of hazy smoke from the crumbling chimney gave any indication that anyone lived there at all. This had to be the right place. Tim stepped forward, avoiding rusting metal scattered on the step while taking a deep breath. He knocked.

The door opened just a crack-- only enough to reveal Jason’s face. He must have been handsome, once upon a time. He was about a head taller than Timothy and bulky. He looked strong. The heavy, worn brown leather jacket he wore just made him look more so. His shoulders were tensed and raised; his skin looked like someone had tried to paint over a light gray with coffee-- ashy and washed out. His cheekbones were prominent, due to the flesh between them and his jaw being slightly sunken in like he had been starved once and had never fully recovered. His nose looked like he had broken it at least twice and had fixed it back in place himself both times.

Jason narrowed his eyes down at Tim. The whites of his eyes had a greenish-yellow tint. The irises were a muddy, murky swamp that just made the unnatural yellowing of his eyes stand out more. He clenched the door. Its shadow cast over him, making his dark hair look an inky black. It made the stark white patch that hung above his right eye stick out like a sore thumb. He looked about ready to slam the door in Tim’s face, snarling and showing his teeth when he spoke, the gash-like scar over his mouth,which had never healed right, stretched obscenely. “What do you want.”

Tim put a wing-tipped derby shoe between the door and the frame, steely frowning up at the taller man, his gray eyes like storm clouds. He was nonplussed by Jason snarling and glaring. He got the same daily from the businessmen he worked with at his father’s company. They too often underestimated him because he looked so small, frail, and sickly. He looked like you could break him if you touched him wrong. This was false; Tim Drake was not easily broken.

“Jason Todd, correct?” Tim asked, passing judgement over the other man with his eyes, although he was raised better than to say anything else.

Jason spat on the floor, crossing his arms and tilting up his head. “Who's askin’?”

Tim ignored him, shoving the door wider with surprising force for such a small body, and shimmied his way in. The door cracked slightly from the violence, making Jason glare with more intensity. With a wide stance and thin lips Tim stared up at the taller man. He looked out of place in Jason’s home, fine china in a hovel. 

“I’m here because I think you can assist me. It’s about the witch. I suspect he has something to do with my father’s death. I want to know what.”

Jason snorted, glaring, and stepped aside, realizing Tim would get into his house one way or another. He slammed the door shut after him. “You must be Wayne’s brat, right? The one who got his brother taken away?” Jason turned away from Tim to limp over to the wood stove, hitting his bad knee a few times as he checked on his water, which had been boiling since before his uninvited guest had knocked. “Well, I’m always ready to ruin Dickie’s day, the goddamn asshole, but I still ain’t happy you're here.”

Tim looked around the tiny, cramped house as Jason checked on the stove. Most of the space was taken up by a large wooden table that had only a single chair to accompany it. Water from a leak in the roof  _ ker-plunked  _ into a bucket sitting in the middle of the table, a centerpiece more respectable than flowers. There was a kitchen area; Tim could see chipped mugs and cracked dishes through the glass of the cabinet hanging on the wall. The space Tim assumed was a bathroom was sectioned off by yellowing paper screens. Behind him was a bed that looked too small for a man of Jason’s size, a travel trunk, and a crammed bookcase. Tim ran two fingers across the table, bringing up dust with them. He raised a sculpted eyebrow, critical. The place might have been tidy, but it wasn't clean.

Tim’s heart jumped into his throat when Jason slammed a mug with a broken handle onto the table.  “You want coffee or tea?” Jason asked gruffly, while pouring hot water into his own, less broken, mug.

“Coffee,” Tim said, taking the mug into his hands. The color matched the purpling bags under his eyes. He took the kettle from Jason’s hands, poured his own water, and watched Jason take a box from the cupboard. He had a tea bag thrown at him. Tim stared at Jason in  derision . “I asked for coffee.”

“Don’t got any.” Jason’s tea steeped swirling in the cup, infecting the water like blood in the ocean. He stirred his drink with his forefinger and scowled as Tim drank his hot water without bothering to put in a tea bag. The only sound for a while was the wind outside, the rustling trees not visible through the latched shutters. They were cheaper than blackout curtains, after all. 

They both refused to speak for a lingering moment before Tim shucked his shoulders back, making himself as tall as he could, mouth in a grim line.

“So. Are you willing to help me?” Tim asked, in his cool, calculating business voice that made him an untouchable marble statue of a man, a god of Olympus watching the mortals with mild disdain. Yet, his voice had an undertone of desperation, cracking the marble and taking the mountain out from under the god. “I understand that I may be being obstreperous\- that means difficult,” Tim added, in case the other man was as uneducated as his dialect suggested.

“I know what it means,” Jason mumbled and spat again.

“He took my family from me.” Tim’s voice cracked as he stared at the grain of the table. “I want my father to be avenged. I… I just want my brother back. He's all the family I have left.”

Jason paused to consider the offer. He finally nodded with a jerk of his head. He knew what it was like to lose family. 

“Fine. I’ll help you, but we ain’t friends and you can’t come ‘round here whenever you want. This is business only.” He held out a hand. They shook firmly, the weathered calluses of Jason’s hands pressed into the smooth skin of Tim’s.

“Understood.” Tim smiled, slightly sadly, and, for the first time since he had knocked on Jason’s door, he looked as young as his nineteen years. 

* * *

Only a hop, skip, jump and a bit away from Jason Todd’s shack was the other house in the woods. It was a strange little house. There was trash strewn across the yard, bottles that sparkled like jewels in the sun, dead plants, and the forgotten and rusted metal frames of old furniture. The front door was too heavy and too black for a normal little house, like a door ripped from a church. It seemed sideways and the locks had all become rusted and useless. Some locks lacked anything to lock into, only there for decoration. The house was clouded in the scents of long burned out fires, meals eaten, incense, and spices and herbs hanging from the ceiling masked by a grandmother’s perfume. There was clutter everywhere. Birdcages on the stove and jewels in the sink, plates and clothing littering the floor. A stained and outdated map of the world was being used as a tablecloth. There were draperies everywhere- bright yellows, deep blues, passionate reds, silk and beads hanging haphazardly from the rafters. A chair was knocked over and someone had put a sturdy cushion on the legs like they would rather use the legs as a seat the set the chair upright.

There were half finished straw dolls and straw cones strewn everywhere. The walls were plastered with old posters and golden brooches were used as tacks, putting reminders into the walls.

-get milk

-deal with wolf

-call school

-meeting Barbara at three thirty on Tuesday. Don't be late.

Shoved under the ladder to the storage filled loft like afterthoughts were two lumpy beds, covered in more draperies, tapestries being used as quilts. It was hard to tell one bed was there at all. Someone had stacked thick tomes and spiral bound notebooks over it, scrolls and stationery and ten cent novels. There were small unextraordinary things on displays like plastic combs and wooden blocks while crowns were shoved under the sagging loveseat. The window over the sink was green and yellow, a stained glass star set into the mess. On the opposite side of the room was a large fireplace. The hearth was covered in boxes of newts, saltines, teeth, buttons, olives, and half empty bottles of virgin French dressing. Kneeling in front of the fire, striking a match, was the owner of the house himself, Dick Grayson, the Witch Who Never Dies.

He had a phone held between his shoulder and ear, frowning slightly as he set the log under his cauldron to flame. The spark made the gold and amethyst in his ears glitter, the lapis lazuli and vial of herbs around his neck hung dangerously over the pot.

“Babs, don’t laugh at me!” He pouted into the phone. “I need help!”

On the other and of the phone, Barbara Gordon did not stop laughing. “You did this to yourself, Dick.” She of course, was right. 

Barbara Gordon had an incredible knack for being right. Patrons at her library often said that she must have magic in her- before backtracking and saying that they weren’t trying to call her a witch. No one in Gotham held high regard for witches or those associated with them. Suggesting someone could be cut of the same cloth as the darkest being in the whole city and, for all Gotham knew, the whole state was the worst type of insult. Barbara was not a woman to be insulted. However, Barbara was one of the few citizens of the smoky city that wouldn't be insulted at being called a witch.

She _was_ one.

“I did not- shit!” Dick narrowly stopped his phone from dropping into the boiling lavender water he was making. “I did not do this to myself! When I made that deal with Wayne I was expecting a baby, not a ten year old. I need your help. Do you want me to get on my knees and beg?”

Dick could tell Barbara was smirking on her side of the line. “That would be something, The Great Witch Who Never Dies, Master of Gotham on his knees for a lowly spirit worker like-”

“Barbara! Please!”

She sighed and Dick could hear her tapping at her keyboard. “Fine. Bring him to the library today when you come for tea today.”

“... Today’s Tuesday?”

“Tt, Grayson, you’re a mess.” And there was Dick’s problem himself, shucking off his school shoes and unceremoniously dropping his backpack among the mess. He had just walked in, and he was already criticizing him.

“We’ll see you in a bit, Babs,” Dick said as he hung up. Turning to his ward, he could see something was upsetting him. Damian Wayne was small for his age, with dark skin that made him stand out in the gloomy city just as much as Dick did. He had a penchant for scowling because his smiles revealed the same sharp teeth that marked  _ Dick’s kind.  _ Despite living with one, Damian was no witch and didn’t want anyone getting the wrong idea. Of course, children were cruel. As good as Damian may be at putting up a stoic mask, Dick had been seeing through stoic masks- sometimes literally- since before Damian’s mother had been even thought of, let alone Damian himself. It was hard to lie to a witch.

“What wrong, kid?” Dick gave the child his full attention. He looked through him like he was acrylic glass, like he could see the sink right behind him, while still seeing every little blood cell pumping through his veins, as if he was looking for a tiny missed stitch in an ornate arras from the days of castles and kings. Damian could have sworn his guardian's eyes dialated so much the blue of his pupils had gone away entirely. But that was impossible, of course.  

“It’s nothing.” He turned away from him, afraid that should he look any longer at him his tongue would start moving of it’s own accord, spilling every secret he had ever known. Damian threw his book bag on top of the table, shattering a small vial of sandalwood oil, making the scent waft through the air and the fluid soak into the dark cloth of the child’s backpack like a bloodstain.

“Is something at school-?”

“Grayson, it’s nothing! Leave me alone!”

Dick pursed his lips. Even the daftest and most lacking in magical ability could see the boy was upset about something, but it wouldn’t do to press. He had to let the child come to him on his own time. You couldn’t force trust, that he knew from experience. He would just have to put a little more manpower into earning it. “Alright. But don’t bother taking your coat off, we’re going to Barbara’s.”

Damian pulled his coat back on from where he had been shrugging it off. “I see no reason for me to come with you to see your beaue.” 

Dick tugged gently on Damian’s ear. “She isn’t my beaue. She’s a… colleague. And she’d like to meet you. Zip up, it gets colder when the dark comes.”

Damian left his coat unzipped. “I’m simply  _ overflowing  _ with excitement.” Ah, sarcasm. This is why he much preferred newborns.

The pair set off through the forest to the outskirts of the city. Dick had been right, the cold was starting to settle in among the falling September leaves. Gotham was a cold place, built on top of a peninsula that couldn’t hold the weight of the infrastructure on it. It seemed to many that it should have sunk back into the water in came from years ago, but it was still standing, still growing. The Forest- it was only known as the forest now, it was the last on Gotham’s peninsula- seemed to move as the guardian and ward passed through. The paths cleared for them, and the dark trees delivered them safely to the city limits. 

There was a rift in the sidewalk traffic around Dick and Damian, the civilians parting to either side of the pavement like the Red Sea. They looked anywhere but at them, some covering their noses and mouths like the air had become poisoned just by having That Witch in the vicinity. It wouldn’t be surprising if the witch brought disease where he stepped. Hands went to good luck charms stowed away in pockets and purses and parents turned their children’s bodies away. Faces were colored with fear, but Dick didn’t seem to notice, and Damian stared pointedly ahead, small hand clasped tight in his guardian's larger one. 

“Look straight forward, Damian,” Dick said in a low whisper. “They won’t hurt you, not while I’m here.”

He knew he wasn’t talking about the pigeon-scared passersby. While he pretended not to see them, he wasn’t blind to the glowing-eyes shadows who stalked over the roofs of Gotham with their glinting bronze blades, ducking into empty alleys. Their teeth were even sharper than Dick’s. Their teeth weren’t teeth at all- they were _fangs._

  
If Damian held Grayson’s hands slightly tighter, well, that was no one’s business but his own.


	2. Houses of Mysteries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian meets Barbara and has his first experience with ghosts. Tim and Jason have their first meeting about the witch and Tim reads a letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It didn't take me a year to write this chapter, which I am pretty happy with! It's also just in time to get everyone in the Halloween mood. In order to make my updates faster, I'm going to be making my chapters shorter, therefor this will likely be longer than the 12 chapter I originally predicted. Hopefully it won't take another few months to have chapter three written!

Barbara Gordon lorded over the Gotham Public Library like some vengeful, biblical archangel. She alone had saved the library from disrepair, she alone kept its funding in a steady flow, and she alone kept censorship from its marble halls. Yes, she had employees, but she was unquestionably the head, the master, and the sole matriarch of every book and every tile in the building. Those on her payroll were unsure if she worked for the city or if the city worked for her. She lived in an apartment she had converted from the library’s clock tower so she never had to leave her precious domain to hands she did not trust. 

Her white bone china tea set rattled as the clock boomed four o’clock. The noise had bothered her the first few months she had lived in her clock tower, but she had soon gotten so used to it she didn’t notice until she had guests and they jumped at the bells. Speaking of guests, he was late. 

Barbara Gordon, being Gotham born and bred, had known of Dick Grayson- The Witch Who Never Dies- since she was a little girl, but had never actually met him until she was nineteen. He had stormed up to her desk at the library one day and demanded to know what she had done with his book of shadows. She had looked at him evenly and told him she had checked it out, and he shouldn’t store personal belongings in a library if that was not a risk he was willing to take. They had been close ever since- it was not everyday someone was nonplussed by a witch, especially not in Gotham.

Barbara probably should have known she’d grow up to be a witch when she she saw her first ghost as a child. Dinah was part of the reason she lived in the library now. What sort of best friend would she be if she let Dinah live by herself after knowing she had been alone for so long with no one able to see her?

Dinah paced the floor, well, glided across it as Barbara watching her over the top of her laptop. “You would have reason to believe,” Dinah started, “that after a century of knowing me he would have better manners than to be late.” She shook her head, a few phantasmal strands of pale hair falling from her Gibson Girl pompadour.

“Di, I doubt you’d’ve noticed if it wasn’t for the clock,” Barbara smiled at her friend and nodded to the Clock Tower’s namesake’s huge face. “Half an hour is, what, a second or two to you?”

Dinah waved her hand dismissively and moved to sit on the corner of Barbara’s desk, “That does not matter. What matters is that after everything the two of us have done for him, he remains so inconsiderate-” They both felt the change in the air that could only mean Dick Grayson himself had entered the building. The air seemed to buzz and crackle as though lightening bugs and bonfire smoke had filled every inch of the air. The women watched the door to Barbara’s private elevator (a gift from Dick) open. Dinah and Barbara exchanged a glance as the caught the tail end of a conversation from inside.

“-and be nice!”  
  
“Drake says I couldn’t be nice if my life depended on it; you are asking me to go against my nature. You are endangering my life, Grayson.”

Dick and the boy that had to be his ward turned from their disagreement as the door opened. Damian’s jaw fell open just slightly and his eyes went wide. Barbara ducked her head in a smile as she watched Dick almost drag Damian, who was fumbling with looking composed, into the room.

“Dinah!” Dick exclaimed, crossing to kiss her spectral hand. “You look as magnificent as the day you died.”

“Flattery will not excuse your lack of timeliness, Mr. Grayson.” Dinah, Dick, and Barbara all shared a smile, knowing this was a lie. 

Damian stood silently at Dick’s side, quietly trying to take into account everything he was seeing, not able to discount the woman as a trick of the light once his guardian interacted with her. He finally let out a breath. “You just kissed a ghost’s hand.”

Dinah laughed from her perch on Barbara’s desk. Dick looked as though he was just realizing that his ward had likely never seen a ghost before, let alone touched one.  It was easy for him to forget just how young and inexperienced in the ways of the world and of magic Damian was. “Yes, this is my friend Miss Lance. Dinah, this is my… this is Damian.” 

Dinah moved to kneel in front of Damian and reached her hand out to him. When Damian hesitantly went to shake it, he found he could not touch her like Dick had. Neither did her hand pass through his though, it was as though an unseen panel of glass prevented Dinah from coming near enough to touch him. The two stated at each other for a moment, at a loss of what to do.

Barbara pursed her lips and wheeled out from behind her desk to be next to Dick. She handed him one of the teacups from the set she had laid out. “I don’t suppose it was you who warded your boy against those of the spectral plane?” she asked in a low voice.

Dick shook his head. Of course he wouldn’t bother with that, he was much more powerful than any phantom being who would try to harm Damian. Besides, he had only had the child for a few days, barely enough time to clear space in the house for a growing boy and to put the most necessary protection wards on him. That had been more difficult than Dick had planned, Damian was much more diligent and observant than he had originally thought. He’d simply had no time to deal in something as petty as spirits.

Barbara ran her hands over the chrome rims of her wheels, a tic she had picked up when she had first been confined to the chair. “I see you warded him to the high heavens,” she was careful to keep Damian from hearing them. Dinah was distracting the child by asking how he liked living with Dick and if it was very much different from living with his father. “Maybe there was a mix up.”

“I don’t make ‘mix ups’, Barbara, and I don’t see how ten or so measly spells make him-”

Barbara raised her hand, and met his eyes with a ferocity only she was able to temper into a look. “There’s much more than ten. He’s covered head to toe, Dick.”

Dick glanced at the child again, but even letting his pupils widen to see secrets and loosen tongues he did not see more that what he himself had placed. His jaw clenched and he felt a fire in his chest that he had not felt in over ten years. He crushed the teacup in his hand so it fell to the floor in a fine powder, coating the hardwood like winter’s first snow. “ _ Someone is trying to hide something from me. _ ”

* * *

When Jason was ten, he had been taken in the night. He had woken up to golden eyes and a finger against his lips and found himself unable to scream or fight as he was carried through Gotham’s inky darkness.  He did not remember most of his eleventh year- mostly he remembered being fed and pinched, trained with knifes and wondering why all the grownups had yellow eyes. Then he was taken from his bed yet again, treated like cattle to pay off a debt and forced to fight, denied food and water when he wasn’t good enough. His memories from that time come and go like part of his mind was missing. It was hard to separate memory from nightmare. And then he died. 

Dying hadn’t hurt, not really. It was too fast to have hurt. Something- had it been a bullet?- went into his head and then everything had stopped. Everything was finally, finally over. It was coming back that hurt. The green still burned in his body, made his blood hot and his eyes wild even after five years. Even after five years he got the urges.  _ Hunt kill destroy blood hunt hunt hunt.  _ He remembers screaming when he came back. He remembers the woman- no the enchantress pulling him up by his hand. He remembers the moon. He remembers the agony in shifting for the first time. He remembers hearing what a perfect weapon he would make. How he was born again for this.

Jason stared at the pale waxing moonlight through his shutters. The hair on the back of his back stood on end and he found himself longing for the hunt. A sense of unease climbed up his back as he remembered Timothy’s marble statue face. If he wasn’t careful…

There was a loud, incessant knocking on the door.

Jason shook his head out and went to the door. He opened the door just a crack. He saw Timothy’s alabaster face, looking down to check his watch, and Jason slammed the door shut. He put his back to the door with his arms bracing it, chest heaving. He couldn’t see Timothy now, not when his blood ran hotter than lightning and he felt more animal than man. His mouth felt full of grimy film that demanded flesh and blood. He licked his teeth to try to get it to go away. It didn’t.

Tim continued to bang on the door. “Jason!” he called from the other side, “Open the door Jason, I know you’re there!”

Jason prayed to whatever gods might listen to him that Timothy would give up and go away, but he should have known that Timothy was the most tenacious man to ever be born under the Drake name. He wouldn’t have gotten to where he was by wavering. He would have never thought of doing something about That Witch. Timothy didn’t stop knocking.

Jason slumped against his door and accepted his fate. His hunger would not be sated and he would have to suffer through pretending to be something he felt less and less like. He cracked the door open again, sallow face cast in shadows. For a moment, it seemed like his green eyes were glowing. “Listen Timothy-”

“Tim.”

“-I told you you can’t be comin’ around here whenever you want,” Jason finished brusquely, hand griped tight around the door handle. 

Tim raised his eyebrows and tilted his head slightly, bemused and critical. Jason could have sworn that Tim’s eyes were laughing at him even though he was being annoyingly professional. “Is that so?”

Jason growled from deep in his throat and his body shuddered without his permission. He resisted the urge to snap his teeth. “Yeah, it is,” he responded through gritted teeth.  _ Threat kill hunt threat threat _ rumbled through the back of his head.

Tim took this in inconspicuously, seeming to catalog it away for the future. “Well,” he took hold of the door and opened it enough to slip inside. “I’m here now and I’m coming in.”

When Tim was ten his mother had told him that knowing how to get people to do what he wanted was the most important skill he would ever possess. He remembered her nails sharp and red as she tied his tie and fixed his posture.  _ People are game pieces, Timothy,  _ she had said, teeth white behind her red lipstick.  _ It is people like you and I who are the players.  _ He does not remember her eyes.  _ We control the pieces.  _ Of course, Tim had learned that Janet Drake believed that she was the maker of the game, able to play the players later in his life. But his mother’s lessons had held true. He was good at making people do what he wanted them to do. He was sometimes afraid of it, but he knew how to use it to his advantage.

He would have to in the case of Jason Todd.

Tim strode over to the little sink and stove, filling Jason’s tin kettle with water. “I brought my own coffee this time,” he said conversationally as he placed the kettle on the stove, looking for a match to light the gas. “But I brought Tienchi tea for you, as well. It’s no Da Hong Pao but-”

“You thought I could use it,” Jason interrupted. “It’s a healing tea. I know.” Jason was standing behind Tim and reached around him to light the gas. The flames burst to life. He hadn’t realized how much taller he was than Tim. Tim’s hair brushed against his collarbone. He could easily, so easily, Tim’s bones were so obviously so frail, and his flesh, it would just take a little-

Jason stepped back shaking his head, not realizing that Tim was watching him in the kettle. He had to push that part of himself down, back to the depths of darkness where they came from, but it was so so hard with the phase and the reminders of what he had been cursed to become. She had fed him Tienchi tea after brought him back. She held it to his lips, pried his mouth open with unnatural strength, forced him to drink. Wolves do not drink tea, but pets eat what their masters give them. Jason looked down, back to reality and saw his hands on his table, clawing into the supple woods. He was twisted into a snarl, salivating at the thought of both a meal and revenge. He composed himself with a shutter, forcing the beast back and putting on the face of man. 

Tim politely pretended not to notice.

He placed the kettle on the center of the table. He had helped himself to Jason’s mug, taking the one with the full handle for himself. He had also commandeered the singular chair, spinning it to rest his arms in the back of it. He set his chin nonchalantly, but failed to hid that this was a power play. Jason wondered if he had been trying to.

“I need to know what you know about Dick Grayson. His comings, and goings, anything useful. Anything that could help build a case against him or explain how he has the whole city under his thumb.” Tim said and reached into his bag. He laid some files out onto the table. It turned out coffee and tea weren’t the only things he brought.

Jason shook his head and traced his fingers over the scratches he had just left in his table. It had been a good table… “People are terrified of him cause he’s a powerful magic user. It’s not that hard to understand.” Jason shrugged one shoulder.

Tim gave Jason a short look. “Magic doesn’t exist.”

Jason barked in laughter, leaning forward and balancing himself with his hands on the table in a fit of hysterics. He wasn’t trying to laugh, honestly, but the concept of magic not existing was- it was just absurd! His shoulders shook as he pulled himself back together and he let out a deep breath. “Very funny, Drake. You almost had me for a second there.”

“Magic doesn’t exist,” Tim said patiently, like he was explaining that the Easter Bunny was made up to a class of second graders. “I’m not kidding.”

Jason’s eyebrows raised in disbelief and he took a sip of the tea Tim had made him, shaking his head. The man lived in one of the most densely magical cities on the East Coast of North America and he didn’t believe in magic. Hell, Salem was just a drop in the bucket compared to the deep and old stuff that ran in Gotham! Tim seemed so sure of himself too. “ _ Where, _ ” Jason said sharply. “Did a smart young man get a notion like that from?”

Impatience crossed Tim’s face for the first time since Jason had met him. He started gathering up all his papers, carefully shuffling into order before sweeping them back into his bag. “Clearly I’ve made some sort of mistake-”

“Look, don’t go.” Jason couldn’t help growling, the beast inside him baring it’s teeth. If Jason was a wolf- if he wasn’t a man- Tim would be tackled to the ground. “You're right that wishy-washy showy abracadabra magic doesn’t exist. People just made that up- you aren’t wrong about that. But listen, Tim. You’ve lived in Gotham your whole life right?”

Against Tim’s better judgement he was still sitting, hand still on his papers. Even though his stance wouldn’t be changed- he was a man of science- he had to admit to being intrigued. “Yes.”

“Then you feel it too. That, that, that something!” Jason tugged at his hair, frustrated with himself for not being able to find the words he needed to explain something that he experienced so much deeper as an animal. He had never tried to think about it in human terms before, even as a child. “It’s a pulse, how the air tastes different than anywhere else, it’s what makes you look over your shoulder like someone is watching you.” Jason was on his knees in front of his tiny bookshelf, pulling them off looking for just the right thing that could explain it for him. “Listen, you’re smart. You know Gotham shouldn’t be standing-”

“It was built with good infrastructure-”

“Bullshit!” Jason turned back to face Tim and he looked feral. His eyes glowed Lazarus green and the scar across his mouth seemed to twist as he snarled. His hair stood at different angles in angry tufts.Tim was starting to understand why people said Jason Todd who lived out in the woods was crazy. He sure looked it.

“The island wasn’t made to hold the weight of all these skyscrapers and factories,” Jason continued. “But it still stands because, because-” Jason turned back to his books, flipping through pages until a yellowing letter fell out of the pages. Jason carefully unfolded the paper. “Because of the will of something Older.”

He stood and crossed back to the table, slamming the old letter on it. He slid it to Tim. “Read it.” He stood, arms crossed and expectant.

It was written on old stationary with little rabbits at the corner in an art style that had been in vogue back in the forties. The handwriting was small loops and despite the age of the paper the ink was hardly faded at all.

_ Dear Jason, _

_ I see you have returned to Gotham Different. Touched by more forces than any child has a right to be- granted you’re a man now. Your mother made that deal, what, eight years ago? Nine? (Time moves differently for me, it’s hard to tell.) That would make you of legal age in the eyes of both set of Laws, unless I’m mistaken. _

_ I’m writing to apologize- not just on my behalf but on the behalf of this whole damn city all the Powers beyond on. I know you will not forgive me and I’m not asking you to. What I have done should not be forgiven. I did not know what they did to the children they had me deal in- I was a fool, blinded by my own experience. I knew, yes, but did not comprehend. It’s easier to pretend that these are what children will be when they are infants. And you have never been forced to leave the city _ ,  _ but I have no control in the forces of those who rule the city. _

_ I know you and many others think I own the city, that I was here at it’s founding, but I did not even exist until 1878. There are forces far Older and more powerful than I that govern this city. Nursery rhymes all hold some truth, after all. Gotham owes its life to forces neither of us can truly understand.  I broken my ties with the Older ones. I don’t know why I am telling you this, but I felt that you have the right to know. You'll be a good man, should you choose to be. _

_ Yours, _

_ Dick Grayson _

Tim carefully folded the letter back up and handed it to Jason. He looked like he had a thousand things he wanted to say, but his mouth was shut.   
  
“Are you starting to understand?” Jason asked, teeth in a sharp smile.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave a comment. This took me _months_ to write, but a comment will only take a few minutes and make my day  <3


	3. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damian is more than he appears and more than he knows. Tim thinks. There's an interlude.

Dick vanished the crushed teacup with a wave as he crossed to Damian and Dinah. Barbara appreciated the gesture- when they had first met he wouldn’t have bothered. And considering he looked just about ready to show his teeth to anything, she was surprised. Of course, vanishing was easier for him than a real witch like her. She rolled over to Damian and Dinah, ready to diffuse any tension. Dinah was better at that than she was, and was already on it.

“He can live up to his name sometimes,” Dinah was agreeing with Damian when Dick clapped his hands on the child’s shoulders.

Damian looked up and scowled at his guardian, which would have been much more effective if it didn’t make him look like a small, crotchety sphynx cat. “Miss Lance and I were having a conversation, Grayson.” The child crossed his arms. 

“And I’m very sorry to interrupt, but I brought you to Babs and Dinah for a reason and I think you should know.”

Dinah exchanged a glance with Barbara- they had both thought this was a social call until it was revealed Damian couldn’t interact with the spectral. However, both were used to Dick’s silver tongue assurances. Dinah, Barbara could tell, approved of them. Much better to tell children what was happening than to not trust them. 

“You know how I’m a witch?” Dick asked, amethyst in his ears glinting as he took a seat in one of Barbara’s plush love seats.

Damian scoffed and nodded. His self consciousness, though he was trying to mask it, was clear as a sunny day. He pursed his lips tighter over his own teeth. “Everybody knows that.”

“Babs is a witch too, and so was Dinah when she was alive. And,” Dick paused and Barbara smiled. She knew how much he didn’t like to admit he needed help. She’d seen him have to call on it before (he had needed the address in the book of shadows she checked out all those years ago, it having been part of a deal with a male witch from Star City) and it always agonized him. She wasn’t sure if it was a Dick Grayson thing, a circus thing, or a something else thing to be so obnoxiously self reliant. 

“And,” Dick continued, letting out a heavy breath. “There are some things they are better at than even me.”

Damian looked back at Barbara and Dinah and nodded, his approval of them seeming to skyrocket. “That makes sense. From what I’ve seen your reputation vastly exaggerated your powers.”

Barbara snorted, and Dinah openly laughed. “Oh, I like him,” Dinah said, pointing a translucent finger at Dick. “You better take good care of him.”

Now that she had an idea of what she was looking for, Barbara could tell some of the magic on the child shone brighter- like blue flame. Dick’s work. The others, swirling and surrounding the boy, were much harder to see and a bright, toxic green. They were thin as silkworm threads, seeming to knot in on itself, getting tangled in Dick’s spell work. She had seen something green like it once before when she was very small and able to brush it off as nothing. It had made her feel small and scared all the same, and she had started making her father check for monsters under the bed again, even though she had previously thought she had grown out of believing in them. Dinah’s eyes were pure, solid white from her perch beside Barbara until she blinked in surprise and let out a shriek that cracked the windows. 

The corporeal beings in the room covered their ears as the sound echoed in the room. Dinah breathed heavily despite not needing to breathe at all. She recognized the same strand of magic from when she was alive a century ago. She hadn’t thought it would still be around after so long; she had hoped it wasn’t. But she had always known her hope was foolish. Lazarus magic was something that remained, dug its claws in and never let go. When Dinah was just starting as a witch, a snake oil salesman had sold the water of it door to door, the green glowing in the moonlight. It enticed people, gave them promises of the health and power of faraway kings and shahs. It worked too, stopped aging, mended broken bones, erased pain. Then, the madness came. The anger, the glowing green inside everyone who consumed it. For some it came after only a few short months. Dinah’s husband Oliver, sweet optimistic Oliver, had managed to hold out for two years after. But one by one, all those who drank Lazarus succumbed to its madness, to its mania, to the early graves it demanded in payment for its gifts. Lazarus water, Lazarus magic, was never meant for humans. The only one Dinah knew who ever overcame and survived it was Dick Grayson.

“You,” she began, looking right at Dick. “can’t make anything in your life easy, can do?”

Damian’s shoulders slumped and instinctively he raised his hands to hide his mouth. “This has to do with why my teeth look like Grayson’s doesn’t it.”

The three adults exchanged a glance. 

“Yes,” Dick sighed and pulled Damian into his arms as if Damian was a much younger child. Damian squirmed at being picked up as though he was a toddler. After all, he was ten. That was double-digits and much too old to be picked up. “Yes, I suppose it does.”

“You see, Dick isn’t a  _ real _ witch,” Dinah said as Dick sat back down, Damian in his lap. “People just call him one and it stuck.”

“Witches die,” Barbara went on. “Of course, most of us become ghosts like Dinah, but we live and die and age normal human beings.”   
  
“And Dick, of course doesn’t age like us. And well-” Dinah interrupted herself. “Can you die? I’ve never really thought about it.”

Dick looked taken aback as well. He also had never really thought about it, not meeting many people like him to compare himself to. He looked to Barbara, which is generally what he had done for the last decade or so when he didn’t know something about magic that he should. Barbara was much better at research than he was, after all, and actually read the Books of Shadows Dick collected. Barbara gave him a shrug. 

“I think I must be able to?”   
  
Damian had crawled out of Dick’s lap and scoffed. He didn’t care about all this, or at least wanted to make sure no one knew he cared. If he had teeth like Grayson and Grayson wasn’t a witch, that meant he wasn’t a witch either. At the same time, he’d much rather be a witch then some sort of monster. He thought about his mother’s family. Grandfather, he knew, lived impossibly long, but he had always thought that was because of the green glowing pits he bathed in. Damian thought for a moment- Lazarus, Mother had called them. He had almost forgotten about them since coming to live with Father. He shook that thought from his mind. The last thing he wanted to think about was Father. It hurt too much.

“What are you then?”

Dick shrugged like there was a large weight on his shoulders- Damian had noticed recently that Dick did everything like there was something else about him. “The technical term for what I am- though I prefer to be called a witch, really, I much admire them and it always seemed more magical to me- is, well, a changeling. You know, switched at birth with fae and all that. I’m sure you’ve heard of them from fairytales or something. Except I’m the one that got switched. The one that grew up with humans.”

Damian felt his heart seize because he didn’t want to be here all of a sudden. If Grayson was a changeling and he was like Grayson that meant he likely was a changeling too. He wasn’t his mother and father’s son. He shoved himself off Dick and stood to leave. He wasn’t like Grayson, he wasn’t. He would find his own way home.    
  
“Damian,” Barbara spoke and Damian paused. “We think you may be fae too.”   
  
“And I think I know the court,” Dinah followed up. “Does the word Lazarus mean anything to you?”

Damian turned slowly. “What do my grandfather’s pits have to do with anything.”

Dinah and Dick shared a sigh. _ No, _ Dick thought as he scrubbed his hand down his face,  _ nothing in my life can be easy. _

* * *

Owls are excellent hunters and can see in the dark. Mostly nocturnal, they rule the night and sleep in the day. They are symbols of wisdom, but also war. They also don’t blink much. And most don’t live underground. Exceptions were made whenever humans tried to mimic an animal they didn’t truly understand.

Exceptions were made in Gotham.

* * *

Tim Drake was nursing his second cup of coffee since he arrived in Jason’s hut. He was trying to listen, really, but everything Jason was saying seemed to go in circles and loops. It was trying to look at the picture that was only half done and the box had been destroyed. Normally, Tim loved puzzles. He loved them a lot less when the foundation of his entire reality had taken a severe knock.

He still wasn’t convinced that this was magic, but it was something. Some child stealing conspiracy going back to the eighteen hundreds- at the very least. Dick Grayson was involved it it, that was clear, but it seemed he wanted out since whatever happened with Jason. It must have shook him, whatever it was. But then why did he have Damian? Did Damian’s mother sell him out? (He refused to believe Bruce would. Bruce wouldn’t have. He would never. They’d been Bruce’s  _ life _ … hadn’t they?) What did he mean ‘nursery rhymes’?

Tim became aware of Jason snapping in his face. He hadn’t even realized he had been so obvious about not paying attention. Normally he had it down to an art form. He hated seeing how he was loosing control of himself as well as everything else around him. He tightened his hands around his coffee mug and tried to straighten up, to put on the impassive mask he wore so well. He knew it wouldn’t work. For as rough Jason was around the edges he was perceptive and Tim knew it.

“I was saying, seems to me you need to see if ole Dickiebird went back to deal-making and it would be suspicious if you or me were trying to strike a deal. You got any friends who’d help you?”

Tim ran his hand through his hair. “There isn’t anything else you think he could be up to?”

Jason had his hands in the scratch marks he had made earlier on the table, like he was trying to cover them. He shook his head, resembling a dog trying to get water out of its ears. “There’s a bunch of stuff he could be up to. What he could be up to where your brother in concerned- not as many. Now, do you have a friend or don’t you?”

“Yes. Do you mind if I?” Tim slipped a phone out of his pocket.

Jason shook his head, again, less doglike. “I’m making a call too. I’ll step out- need the air anyways.” Jason practically slammed the door behind him on his way out.

Jason was an odd duck, but that didn’t mean Tim didn’t like him. He did think it was entirely too suspicious how involved Dick Grayson seemed to be in in Jason’s life, and how Jason chose to live so close to him despite that. He sincerely hoped Jason wasn’t involved in this strange conspiracy still. He wanted to like him. He wanted to be able to trust him. After all, any ally was a good ally.

For now, he had a call to make.

* * *

Talon wasn’t very good with the language the masters spoke, but he had over a century of practice. He understood there was a child promised and no delivery was made. He understood it would be likely his job to collect the child, as the oldest and most skilled. The rest of the details were lost to him.

Talons were gossips, though, and the masters had never caught on to the language of birdsong and clicks against bronze. The owlery provided him the rest. It was the fae who didn’t provide, the charlatan. Talon allowed himself a smile. He would enjoy the fight should it come to that- and it _would_ come to that. He'd make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sincerely sorry for taking over half a year to get this out. In my defense, I did also write a script for a one act play in that time. Hopefully the next chapter won't take too long, once I reconfigure my timeline. Thank you all for your patience and continued support! Comments are greatly appreciated <3


End file.
